


Objects May Be Closer Than They Appear

by kosame



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-07
Updated: 2009-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosame/pseuds/kosame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are only so many things you can explain away before you can't hide in denial any longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Objects May Be Closer Than They Appear

**Author's Note:**

> For anonymous who requested "Nino loves them, how could he not when they're his best friends? I want a Nino sandwich. I want them sober." This is *so* not living up to the prompt, but... I tried? Posted to the 2009 Spring Anonnymeme [here](http://happygayspring.livejournal.com/526.html?thread=99342#t99342).

Every time someone told Sho he was just a little too close with his bandmates, he shrugged them off. Those people just didn't have close enough friends, or they hadn't worked with them for ten years, or were just reading too much into things. It was sad for them really, Sho always thought, that they didn't have that kind of closeness with someone. But as all the times someone had said something about it played back in his head on loop, apparently the only thing left to him after his brain breaking due to Nino and Aiba and Nino kissing Aiba, he thought they might be onto something.

He really hadn't suspected anything when he accepted tonight's invitation from Nino, which he realized, objectively, was probably his first mistake. He should have at _least_ been wary of getting stuck with the bill. Instead, he walked into the dim cafe whistling, heading for the back corner where Nino said he always sat. He hadn't suspected anything when all he got was a distracted, "Hi, Sho-chan," before Aiba tried to stuff a breadstick up Nino's nose. And he hadn't suspected anything when Nino swatted at Aiba before collapsing in giggles back against Sho in the cramped booth.

"So, what's good here?" Sho had asked, poking Nino in the side to get him to sit up on his own.

"I dunno, I've never been here before, " Aiba answered him. They both looked expectantly at Nino, who hadn't stopped laughing.

Somewhere in the period between when Sho rolled his eyes and raised the menu to read it, and when he heard the crash of Aiba's elbows as he thrashed against the wooden back, Nino had gotten himself almost entirely in Aiba's lap, holding Aiba down to tickle him even as he tried to wiggle away. This was nothing unusual, so Sho was about to go back to the menu. And then Nino kissed Aiba and Sho's brain sputtered stubbornly a few times before dying an inevitable death.

He sat there, dumbfounded, and that was when the playback had started in an endless loop. Occasionally a thought would come out like, "Aiba looks remarkably comfortable for someone I assume hasn't been assaulted by Nino before," or "I hope they're not suffocating, it seems like they've been at it a while now," but mostly he just took in the way the world had closed itself off around them, as if enclosing Sho in a crazy alternate universe.

Thankfully, someone dropped a plate, and Sho was finally able to tear his eyes away. He cleared his throat. "Well, I guess I'll just... leave you... to it..." and started to get up to leave, but then Aiba and Nino both pouted at him, eyes dark and lips pink and wet, and Sho let out a small whimper. The moment of hesitation was all Nino needed to snatch Sho's wrist and pull forward, leaning back to meet him.

Sho really, really wanted to say, "I'm going home, and we will never speak of this again." What started coming out of his mouth was, "I really don't think this is the best place for this." What he actually said was, "I really-- mmphm," because Nino apparently did not care that he was an idol in a crowded restaurant making out with two of his male bandmates.

Nino whined into Sho's mouth, and Sho's hand unexpectedly met Aiba's on Nino's back as he tried to keep Nino from collapsing backwards, and all three of their knees ended up bumping each other when Sho slid further into the booth. The alarm bells stopped ringing in Sho's head, and he knew he was totally going to spend the rest of tonight going along with this insane plan of Nino's.

He looked on, dazed, as Nino made sure Aiba didn't feel like he was being neglected, before suddenly remembering what he had been trying to say.

"I really don't think we should be making out in a public place," he said in his totally normal tone of voice.

"You're right," Nino said, and he pushed Aiba out of the booth, tugging Sho along by the hand he'd never let go of.

* * *

 _After this... I can tell you that Nino's place is the closest, and they ended up there after a brief discussion in which Nino offered to call Mrs. Sakurai and inform her her son wouldn't be home until late himself, and Sho had instead sent her a terse e-mail after reminding Nino how no member of Arashi (except maybe Jun) was allowed to speak to his family after that time when his _sister_ had suggested to his mother that Arashi was suspiciously close, his brother had completely refused to back him up, and his father had fled to the veranda claiming he needed a cigarette. Incidentally, Nino had apparently made up a rule that the host gets to be in the middle while Sho and Aiba had been distracted by each other in the back seat. Sho doesn't find out until the next morning exactly how wrong he was in the assumptions he made about Nino and Aiba's relationship._

* * *

Ironically, the most shocking part of the entire thing happened the morning after when Sho and Aiba were banished to Nino's living room while he made breakfast ("No-one wants mabo dofu waffles, okay." "But just think how nicely the cubes of tofu would sit in the pockets!").

"Nino-chan's in a weird mood, isn't he?" Aiba said idly, spinning a Wii controller by the strap.

"No, you think?" Sho replied.

"Just, it's been a long time."

The world Sho thought he knew fell out from under him. He grasped the edge of the table for support. "What do you mean?" The words were tight and high pitched.

Aiba looked a little surprised. "You mean you never--? I thought-- You're really close."

"We're all "really close," Masaki," Sho said in urgent, breathy tones.

"Which is why I assumed-- Really? You really hadn't?"

Sho really wished Aiba would use a _noun_. And also that he didn't sound so excitedly curious. "If you mean--" Great, now Aiba had him doing it. "No. No, I had never slept with any of you guys before."

"Oh," Aiba said, and Sho couldn't read his expression. He really hoped it didn't mean, "Well, we've all been sleeping with each other for the past ten years," because the thought sent a stab of something cold and lonely into the center of his chest. He kept staring at Aiba, willing him to go on. "What?" Aiba squirmed uncomfortably.

"So you and Nino...?" Sho prompted.

Aiba laughed, his hair falling back perfectly and Sho suppressing a flash of the night before. "Not often. But sometimes. More when we were younger. You know how he is, with people he likes."

Sho did know, although he'd dismissed his feelings that flirted with the line, and he assumed Nino did too. He'd apparently assumed incorrectly. He stayed lost in thought, almost hypnotized by Aiba threading one finger through the strap and trying to catch the controller like a kendama, before the rest of Aiba's comment caught up with Sho's brain. "Wait, when you were _younger_?"

Aiba's expression turned evasive, and he started to stammer nonsense. Mercifully, Nino returned carrying three plates, and Sho didn't have to hear Aiba's answer.

* * *

"Oh, is it that late already?" Aiba asked after breakfast. He laid out some excuse about having something to do for his play, which Sho was pretty sure was a lie, and got up to leave.

"You just don't want to do the dishes," Nino accused him, lashing out at his legs as he passed.

Aiba leaned down to give Nino a sideways hug and said something in his ear that made his expression soften. He flashed Sho a big grin over Nino's head, and waved as he disappeared down the hallway.

After they heard the door shut, Nino leaned back on both his hands. "He thinks he's subtle."

Sho knew. "He was surprised."

"About what?"

"That I was surprised."

Nino didn't look at Sho. "Sorry. Just, he's different."

"Oh," Sho said.

Something like panic flashed in Nino's eyes. "I just didn't know... Your friendship is important."

Sho punched Nino's arm lightly. "I don't need those excuses."

Nino smiled at Sho.

"Anyway, I understand," Sho added. "What was it Aiba said? "Since we were young"?"

The smile turned into a grin. "We _were_ a duet."

* * *

Sho watched Nino and Aiba carefully over the next few days over the tops of newspapers or scripts. Partially, he wanted to know how naive he had been. Both of them seemed to think sexual encounters among bandmates would not unravel Arashi at the seams and bring them crashing down in a flaming horror of mixed metaphors. They'd all thought, when they started, that working together successfully required being close while still giving each other their space. And not that Sho really minded, but he didn't think the other night had been about giving any of the three of them any space. He wondered if there was something going on in the way Jun looked at Aiba or Nino and Ohno's epic play-romance that he was willingly blind to.

He was using this question to distract him from the other question of why it had never come up before now. Answers to that ranged from "Maybe they just thought I prefer girls," which was kind of the truth, to "Maybe they're just not that into _you_ , Sakurai," which was probably also the truth. Either way it reminded him of Nino's whining about how girlfriends are too much work and would never match the closeness of the members, and how he was still p.o.'d at Nino because he'd started to believe it. (In retrospect, now that he remembered that, he probably should have seen the other night coming.)

"You're thinking too much," Aiba told him, pulling down the newspaper Sho obviously hadn't been reading.

Sho had a moment of panic, followed by his best "shut up" look.

"Jun keeps checking his shirt to make sure he hasn't spilled something on it. Even Captain noticed you've been staring."

"Sorry," Sho said shortly, not meaning it.

"I just don't know what you're looking at us for, when the one who's changed is Sho-chan."

Sho didn't have anything to say as Aiba gave him a half smile as he got up and left.

* * *

Sho had come to the conclusion that he was pretty stupid, especially after it had taken him until 2 the previous night to figure that out. When everyone in his _own family_ believed his bandmates were suspiciously close, and when he himself had been secretly crushing on them in turns, he was acting like an idiot being so shocked. A selfish idiot. He stayed up berating himself for being so thoughtless about Nino and Aiba's feelings, before realizing how late it was and going to sleep. But he did decide that even if he had been a jerk before, maybe he could still make up for it.

He wanted to know where Nino's "weird mood" was coming from. The only thing he could think is that Nino was lonely for some reason, which was patently ridiculous, but that had never stopped Nino from doing anything before. He never really had the words to express who Nino was or what he meant to Sho, but he did have some intuitive understanding of the guy. He just had to intuit correctly, which was harder than it looked.

The next morning at work he decided after about five minutes of the chaos that was his bandmates combined with television filming that he wasn't going to figure anything out here.

"Are you free tonight?" Sho asked, leaning against the table next to Nino. "I want to ask you about something."

Nino's expression looked pulled in two directions, the grimace in his eyes not matching his smile. "Okay."

"The same place as last time?"

"Okay."

* * *

"Jun-kun, yes, Oh-chan, no," Nino said as he slipped in next to Sho in the same booth from last week. He sounded tired, or maybe disappointed. "That's what you wanted to ask me, right?"

Sho would be lying if he said he hadn't been curious, but, "No, that's not what I wanted to ask you."

Nino perked up a little bit.

Actually looking at Nino's face made it more difficult to say than he'd envisioned. He choked out finally, "Why?"

The bit of hope disappeared as the corners of Nino's mouth tightened. "You need to be okay with this," he said, the tension in his mouth transferring to his words.

"No, no, I meant." Sho paused; somehow it was even harder to talk to this look than the carefully hopeful one. "I meant, you've been... lonely?"

"I'm not lonely," Nino said. He wasn't meeting Sho's eyes anymore.

"Then, why?"

Nino ran his hands over his face, squishing in his cheeks. "It's just, you've been flying all over the world. It's hard when you're doing so much and I never see you," Nino said.

Sho knew.

"America is too far away," he continued.

Sho knew that too.

"And I thought, if I didn't do something now, I wouldn't get the chance again. You're already mad I waited this long, aren't you?"

"No," Sho said, then amended, "Maybe a little. But you just drive me insane sometimes."

"'Sometimes'?" Nino asked. "Are you stupid?"

"Agh, when did this become a manzai routine?"

Nino giggled at Sho's expense, fading into amicable silence.

Sho said after a moment, "If you're lonely, you should just tell me."

"I wasn't lonely," Nino insisted.

Sho rolled his eyes. "If you're 'not lonely,' you should just tell me,"

Nino smiled at Sho, cheekiness exuding from the laugh lines. "Sho-chan, I'm not lonely."

Sho stopped, and noticed how the mischief didn't reach his eyes. He let the moment hang for a few seconds. "Now what am I supposed to do? This is too confusing!" He slouched to the side, until his vision was filled with one of the plastic menus.

"Onigiri," Nino said.

"Huh?"

"That's what's good here."

Sho scanned the menu. "It's also the cheapest thing."

"It's my favorite place. And you shouldn't complain, because since you invited me, I assume you're treating."

Sho hid a smile with a groan. "Thanks for being such a considerate friend."

Nino gave him a dorky expression and two fingered salute. "Anytime."


End file.
